


Milk & Sugar

by feyrelay



Series: All Things Sweet & Nice [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Ageplay, Catharsis, Comfort Sex, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Married Couple, Mentioned Skip Westcott, Minor Pietro Maximoff/Wanda Maximoff, Moodboards, Multi, No Underage Sex, Partner Swapping, Virginity Roleplay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 18:38:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19447252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feyrelay/pseuds/feyrelay
Summary: Tony and Peter are married and Tony now understands that sometimes Peter feels a little... little. It's fine.But then it happens in front of their friends, without warning.Sequel to Peppermint.[Fills my Tony Stark bingo square K2: "Sunrise/Sunset" for chapter 1, R5 "Smell" for chapter 2, T5 "Science & Magic" for chapter 3, K5 "Always" for chapter 4.]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Playlist [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6naUM5EeuJgefGfeJqgVoa?si=b5ITDt6pTmqAPzyCxYkCFA).

Things improve after the holidays, the way they always do.

Malibu is warm and beautiful, and Peter has a lot of fun doing parkour off the hedges and ultra-modern fences of their neighbors, and no one says shit because… well, _Spider-Man._

He texts MJ a picture of a gate he ‘accidentally’ broke beyond repair, one that was illegally cutting off access to a public beach that some rich bitch had decided was hers to own.

He starts seeing Rosalind, a private therapist-to-the-stars, who lives just up the beach with her husband, Quentin. He doesn’t see the guy much—he’s usually at his CGI and Foley effects job when Peter has an appointment with Ros—but he’s nice. Showy, but polite. A little slick but not sleazy.

Peter continues babysitting sweet little Chetna. Tony continues his bromance with Alton Brown.

It’s all _just fine_.

Peter thinks about Skip Westcott every day.

***

Malibu is different from Manhattan, and not just because the water’s all on the wrong side for a sunrise. People actually _go outside_ here and, like, stay there. They entertain. They invite people over to their houses and all sit together on decks and patios and the bare beach itself.

It’s fucking weird.

Peter loves it, though. Occasionally, he’ll get a wild burr up his ass and decide to play Stepford Wife and sweet talk Tony into letting them have a little party or something. He even has a little Pinterest board with cocktail and centerpiece ideas and he feels extremely fucking gay about it, but also pretty happy.

At one such gathering, some enchanted evening, he’s lucky enough to finally get enough of the team together to fill their massive outdoor dining set that’s set up on the veranda and which gets little use. He feels a strange sense of accomplishment from knowing that every piece of their china and flatware service for twelve is being used. 

Tony’s been drinking less and cooking more and the food is wonderful. There are string lights and the strains of good music floating above the second tier of the deck, and Clint and Laura Barton are tearing up the makeshift dancefloor. Hawkeye will never live it down, but Peter sees Laura’s eyes glow in the low light, and sees a mirror of himself when he’s with Tony, and gets it.

He doesn’t know where this desire to feel useful and small and feminine and performative is coming from—Ros would probably know—but Peter feels alright about it, just now.

Down on the beach, Steve Rogers is listening _very_ seriously as Chetna explains how to make chai the right way, in that way that children have of assuming adults don’t know how to do anything. Peter can hear from way up here, with his excellent hearing, and he wonders if Steve would be telling the story about Peggy Carter and her proper, English tea ideals, if he knew.

(“Milk ‘til it’s light brown, just like you said, Chetna. And sugar as needed, but the main thing is that the water is hot. Buck, c’mere, meet my smart new friend, Peg would’ve loved her… we oughta have a kid like this, don’cha think?”)

And, god, Peter doesn’t _know_ why it gets to him. It should be cute. It _is_ cute. He tries to focus on the beautiful sunset he’s witnessing, but it blurs in front of his eyes.

Peter tries hard to breathe, leaning out over the railing and trying to focus in on the sound of the tide. But maybe calm isn’t something you can _try_ for. 

(Maybe being a good parent could be like that, too?)

Peter shakes his head at no one and nothing as the wind off the water picks up his hair. He thinks he might just be unfit. No one could think that it’s okay to just let a family happen to you, rather than preparing for it, rather than doing your best; he feels bad for even contemplating it.

(He’ll just have to try harder.)

The sun goes down.


	2. Chapter 2

The next day dawns and Peter wakes up sleepy. It’s gonna have to be a lazy sort of Saturday morning. He just doesn’t have the emotional capital for anything else.

Tony’s already awake, but not out of bed. From Peter’s vantage point, and through sleep-grimed eyes, he can tell that Tony’s paging through recipes again. Peter himself has started to get into food photography, trying his best to showcase Tony’s new skills.

It’s something they can do together, and the colors and textures are so _much_ for his senses to feast on. It’s frivolous, though. And, ah, there’s the guilt.

Peter feels he should be in Queens, but—for now, at least—he’s content to be right here, in their bed.

“G’mornin’,” he grumbles, grabbing onto Tony’s bicep for something to mouth at.

“Morning, sunshine,” he gets in response, but Tony doesn’t look up. He’s lost in lasagna, _again._

Peter huffs, and barely resists the childish urge to pull on his husband’s arm until he gets more attention.

“Pay attention to me,” he does say, despondent; it’s kind of a lateral move, if he’s honest.

Tony spares him a little bit of side-eye, dimming the holo-tablet and setting it aside when he catches sight of Peter’s pouty countenance. As soon as the tablet is safely stowed, he moves faster than he usually does, throwing his weight toward a very surprised Peter.

He starts tickling him, the fucker.

Peter shrieks and only seconds later does his body react, super slow for him. He hopes he doesn’t wake Nat or Wanda, the only two Avengers actually staying at the house for the weekend. Everyone else has other accommodations.

Tony is fucking _heavy_ , and Peter ribs him about it. “I see your lasagna obsession is making itself known around the middle, here.”

It works, in the sense that Tony stops tickling him.

In another sense, Peter just totally screwed the pooch because Tony looks _offended_ as all hell, eyebrows scrunching comically. Oh, no, wait. Tony has that particular gleam that Peter knows by now; it means he’s hamming it up.

Tony bites his chin, a total shock move. Peter shrieks again.

“Listen, Pete; if you were jealous of the lasagna, all you had to do was speak up. You don’t have to bring my girlish figure into this to get a bite taken out of you. I’ll oblige.”

“How fucking noble-” Peter barely gets out, before the tickling begins again. This time, Tony pushes his soft sleep shirt all the way up, nipping at Peter’s chest and stomach.

Tony, in particular, sets up shop near a sharp hip bone and goes to town marking Peter up, but it… it’s not right. Doesn’t feel right. Peter pushes him away, panicking.

“No, no, wait-” he says, confused at himself.

Tony shifts his weight off Peter’s legs. His face is careful, waiting. “Peter?”

“I. I dunno. Uhm. Can we- can we go swimming, _no_ , surfing?” Peter hears himself ask. He pulls his top back down.

“Uh, I guess? Nat hates it, but I think Wanda’d be in? Are we gonna talk-”

“Um, lemme just… get some breakfast in me? Sorry, sorry, I’m. I just need to eat, I think,” Peter manages. He’s not angry, or sad, or _anything._ He’s just not really _here_ , all of a sudden. It’s not so much that he doesn’t feel alright, but he just doesn’t feel like himself. He feels younger, more vulnerable, and less into the idea of Tony’s mouth on him than he is the idea of a warm breakfast and a cuddle.

“Okayyy,” Tony intones slowly, “I’ll go ask the girls what they want. Give you a minute?”

His voice makes it a question when it doesn’t really have to be. It makes Peter feel a little sick, and a lot guilty.

He lays there and watches the morning crawl across the ceiling.

Eventually, Peter can’t resist the smell of waffles, slightly burnt like he likes them. It warms something in him, that Tony knows that.

(Of course, it’s just another thing Peter knows he doesn’t deserve. One day, Tony will figure that out.)

Peter goes into the kitchen and hooks his chin over Wanda’s shoulder.

“Morning, friendo,” Peter says, playing at easy-going while he snags a piece of her waffle. Natasha fixes him with a look over her coffee and yogurt, but he ignores it. He’s never been able to hide from her. Time hasn’t changed that.

“Mornin’, Pietro,” Wanda yawns. She does that, now and then, and he doesn’t mind. He knows she misses her brother. That loss resonates with him, especially on this melancholy morning.

Tony is focused on burning the waffles just enough, but not too much, so his back is turned. He’s got that tunnel-vision set to his shoulders that Peter frequently empathizes with. Peter could get away with anything, now, probably.

Nat catches his waist as he goes by to make some tea. “ты в порядке?”

“Yeah, m’fine,” Peter replies, letting her hug him a bit before they can catch Tony’s attention. “Do you maybe wanna try surfing again, _Natashenka_?”

She wrinkles her nose even as Wanda perks up across from her. “No, not today, spiderbait.”

“I really don’t understand why you hate it so much,” Wanda grouches. “You have perfect balance.”

Tony pours her more coffee and Nat takes a moment to sip at it, careful of its steaming temperature, before answering. “The truth is, I don’t have to justify it. Some things are simply outside my comfort zone. If this was a battle, that’d be one thing; among friends, though, I can simply speak my mind and refuse.”

Peter doesn’t miss the way she seems to be pointedly speaking _at_ him, but the moment doesn’t last.

“A battle… that requires you to surf. Hmmm. I should program a water landing function into your nano-boots,” Tony interrupts, gears already turning as he nurses his own coffee.

Tony and Nat embark on their own conversation regarding the water-themed villains they’ve handled over the years, and Wanda quietly offers Peter another piece of her waffle. “I’ll go swimming or surfing with you. Wouldn’t want the spider to get washed out, you know, like the nursery rhyme?” she smiles.

She’s so earnest about it that it makes Peter laugh, grateful to have her visit. He thinks maybe that the day is salvageable.

Of course, that’s when Tony turns the TV on to the news.

***

Peter moves far too fast, even as red energy pulls at him, trying to hold him back as he descends the stairs of their deck. Fortunately, his spidey senses give him enough warning to throw Wanda’s magic off for long enough to vault over the railing and dodge Nat’s electro-stingers.

He will not be kept from the ocean, right now.

The sand cushions his landing, but Tony’s shout jangles his ears and his heart. He wonders if maybe he ought to-

No.

“ _The arrest this morning of esteemed magnet school superintendent, Skip Westcott, has shocked the Burbank, California community…_ ”

Christ, Peter doesn’t know why no one wants him on the beach right now. He has a flash of, well, years ago and another lifetime, another timeline, and letting himself freefall with a red tie like a target streaming after him-

He’s just going swimming. They don’t need to have a truth confessional over it.

(Your love is gonna drown.)

(Burbank is only forty miles from here.)

“... _Westcott stands accused of a years-long program of promising Burbank’s best and brightest—and their parents—privileged opportunities in return for their silence and cooperation in what authorities are saying is a child sex abuse ring that spans multiple counties within the greater Los Angeles area…_ ”

Tony lands, thrusters sending sand spraying, just in front of him, palm out. “Listen, love, I know you probably need some air, but-”

“Can we not?” Peter snaps. He tries to dart around Tony—and should be more than fast enough—but it seems his tells and feints are on full display to his husband, who anticipates the move and catches him up.

_“...A veteran educator, Westcott did his teaching apprenticeship across the country in New York City, in the late aughts. Investigators now believe that the clues to his alleged perversion may have been lost in a cross-country disconnect. Reports of similar allegations are only now coming to light, courtesy of the Queens County Board of Education and New York City District 519…”_

“It’s not your fault,” Tony presses into his hair, privately, before Nat and Wanda catch up.

If only his senses and sensibilities would let Peter believe that, but it’s too much. Behind him, there’s the feminine energy of his two teammates, still smelling of waffles and syrup, radiating concern. There’s also the grainy, but ultimately soft, sand under his bare feet, the wind coming off the waves, Tony’s metallic warmth and Peter’s own morning cotton mouth pressed into his shoulder, he can’t-

He really doesn’t mean to say it. It’s really, _really_ bad timing.

“I want my mom and dad,” he whines, feeling small. (Sounding it.)

The spider-senses do nothing to protect him from the shock that resounds on the beach, at that.

***

Peter wants to swim. He doesn’t want to talk.

Everyone keeps telling him he did nothing wrong, that it’s not his fault, but it _must_ be, because he woke up this morning wanting to get in the water, and he told his daddy, and Daddy said okay, and they’re still not doing it.

Usually, once his daddy says ‘yes’, things just happen. Like _that._ (Snap.)

This doesn’t make sense.

Peter hugs Wanda, because things don’t make sense. She hugs him back and it helps.

She says, “Listen, he’s distressed. I can feel it-” 

“ _I_ can feel it,” Tony interrupts. Peter smiles because he secretly kind of likes when Daddy is jealous. That goes away, though, because Tony adds something about the bad thing Peter said. “Pete, we really should talk about the whole ‘wanting your mom and dad’ thing. And I also need to be sure you’re not gonna go for the water again, until you’ve calmed down.”

“Why not?” Peter says into Wanda’s side.

Tony sighs, “Peter, you know why. Don’t, don’t take it personally. No one should be swimming or surfing when they’re so upset. That’s how you do something silly and get yourself in trouble.”

“M’not silly.”

“No, baby, I know-”

“And I didn’t _do anything_!”

Tony just sort of looks at him helplessly and Peter feels bad. He hates when he gets like this, and he knows from experience that it’ll get worse before it gets better. He’s not gonna be able to age back up until he ages down.

It doesn’t help that Natasha is watching this all like it’s a rather fascinating documentary. Or that Wanda seems to have assigned herself as his guardian angel, which is nice, he guesses; her hugs are good. But, it prickles a little, too.

Before he knows it, Peter has started crying hot, fat tears. It’s half-anger, half-sadness, and half-embarrassment at turning into such a baby in front of all of these heroes. That’s three halves, which is more than a whole one, and far too much for him right now.

Careful, as if not merely walking on eggshells but actually attempting to piece them together back to a whole shell, Tony suggests, “Let’s get you into a bath.”

(In the back of his mind, Peter appreciates the gesture and the attempt to get him out of the spotlight of their friends’ scrutiny, but that’s a thought that hangs from a rung too high up his emotional ladder, just now.)

Instead, he says, “I don’t _want_ a bath. The smells are like punishment; I didn’t _do_ anything.”

“I didn’t say you did!”

Daddy’s voice is very loud so Peter makes his louder, to match. To _out_ match. To be heard.

“Skip isn’t my fault! My _real_ dad told me so.”

Natasha pulls Tony away, down the hall, and Peter holds his arms open for another Wanda-hug.

(It’s not as good, the second time.)


	3. Chapter 3

Tony and Natasha take a lot longer to come back than Peter had thought they would.

It’s been like thirty minutes, which is forever.

Peter eats a bit more cold waffle and tells Wanda a story. It’s polite to entertain guests, and Peter knows this story must be entertaining because his parents and the police had asked him to repeat it so many times.

The thing is, Wanda doesn’t seem to like hearing about Skip, not really, though she never interrupts him or tells him to stop. Peter feels guilty that she didn’t like his story, but figures there’s nothing he should feel sorry for since he’s sure he told the story right.

It’s the kind of story that is hard to forget, so hard that he sees it in his head sometimes.

But then, he hadn’t told it right back then either, not when it counted. Not when the judge man and the other people were all listening to him in a room that seemed smaller than it should have been, which just meant everyone was a bit too close.

Peter tells Wanda this, too, and his fork bends in his hand. All the forks on the table bend, and all the spoons, though the knives fly straight up and make a four-pointed design in the ceiling.

“How about that bath?” he hears as Tony and Natasha come into the room again. Auntie Nat’s hand is on Wanda’s shoulder and Daddy’s is on his, so Peter figures that means he better do as he’s told. He nods.

It’ll be less confusing for everyone that way.

However, it hardly matters a moment later, because Wanda says the most confusing thing of all.

“Can I help Peter in the bath, please?”

***

Peter loves the water, but he hates baths. He loves praise, but he hates attention.

Those are just things that match, but don’t fit, Daddy says. Peter thinks it’s a little much to try and understand. All he knows is that he doesn’t feel good, and he wants to.

He stretches his body out across the big bed, angling for the sun, with Wanda next to him. Auntie Nat and Tony are talking in the doorway. It’s warm.

“Why don’t you want to take a bath, Pete?” Wanda asks. She’s moving a stray crystal that fell off the little rope that ties the curtains back. She’s moving it with her mind, and it makes rainbows form on the wall.

Peter touches one with his toe, but stretches his leg too far and it bangs down to rest on the lip of the headboard, muscle strength spent. “I dunno. Why do you _want_ to?”

Wanda twists into his side, hair spilling over his neck with her breath. “I used to help my baby brother in the bath. He had a hard time holding still.” She punctuates her statement with a little, squeezing hug. She’s just as warm as everything else, but a little softer.

“I don’t like the scents, really,” Peter confesses. “Even ‘unscented’ has a smell, to me.”

Wanda floats the crystal closer to eye-level. Peter looks through it at the ceiling fan; Wanda twists her wrist and the image kaleidoscopes into an army of ceiling fans. Peter imagines all that air blasting him in the face and gives himself goosebumps and a shiver for his trouble.

There are lips at his forehead, Tony’s. “Hey, kiddo. Come on, time to get clean. You’ve had enough reprieves.”

Peter wants to be good, he really (always) does, so he pops right up, narrowly missing smacking his Daddy in the chin with his forehead. “Okay, I will. But I think I do want Wanda to help me.”

Wanda, for her part, perks up, and promises, “I can probably shield him from the fragrances. It might make him less fussy.”

“I’m _not_ fussy!”

Tony glances between the two on the bed, and then shares a look with Nat, who affects a shrug, though her eyes are sharp.

“If it’s alright with them, it should be alright with us. Am I wrong?” she says simply.

Tony tilts his head in acknowledgement, though his mouth is a narrow, considering line. “Do you, uh. Do you want me to help, too? You have to get naked for the bath, Pete. I, uh, don’t know how that’s gonna work. I mean-”

He cuts himself off, twists his wedding ring around his finger, sighs. Peter files it under ‘Stuff I’m Not Thinking About’.

He _does_ say, “We have a really nice, big bathroom, Daddy.”

And that’s that.

***

In the end, Peter ends up getting into the bubble bath with Tony’s help. Tony goes to sit on a little stool that they’ve had in the bathroom for years. His joints creak as his limbs fold to allow him to sit so low to the ground. Nat perches on the marble of the vanity, perfectly balanced and at ease.

Wanda, Peter is thrilled to find out, streaks through the bathroom, hops over Tony’s feet (stark-naked), and uses her magic to cushion her splash into the giant whirlpool tub.

Bubbles go everywhere.

Peter focuses on one in particular as it floats around the room. It keeps him from being too shy.

Wanda touches his bicep and he startles, catching his Daddy’s wide-eyed look from the corner of his own eye, but Wanda just asks him if there is any scent that _doesn’t_ bother him, or if he’d prefer nothing at all.

He laughs. “What does ‘nothing’ smell like, Wanda? It’s been years since I’ve been able to tune out scents like that. Maybe just try for a rain smell? I do okay with that, I think.”

His more mature voice and decisive nature are discordant with what’s going on, but sue him. There’s a naked lady in the bath with him. He’s allowed to age up a little.

Nat’s watching him like a hawk, though, and it’s unnerving. Peter shrinks back into himself. “I mean, if you can. I know petrichor is a hard thing to replicate.”

Wanda rubs her wet cheek on his shoulder, coaxing him to look at her instead of the adults. Her eyes are red. “You know I can bend reality and and your whole sense of existence, right, Pietro?”

He manages a watery smile.


	4. Chapter 4

It’s actually not so bad, the bath. He and Wanda play mermaids, which is more fun than ever because of her long hair and the ghostly waves it makes under the water. The whole bathroom smells like a Kansas thunderstorm and Wanda washes his hair for him while he hums songs from _The Wizard of Oz_ under his breath. He gets tired from the warm water and she lets him use her chest as a pillow for a few moments while Peter and his Daddy make some very serious eye contact. Peter gets intrigued by how the water rolls down from her hair over the curves of her breasts, so close to his face, and he can’t help but watch a couple of droplets race to rejoin the bath.

Tony groans and Nat laughs and she lets the older man bury his face in her overhanging shins, and to Peter it feels like a really weird kind of family, but a family all the same.

He’s not too excited or not excited enough. He’s not manic or depressed. He’s just there, safe, with his favorite people, and it somehow doesn’t matter if anyone else would understand.

Eventually, though, they do have to leave the bath; both his fingertips and Wanda’s have gone pruney.

This time, it’s Nat that helps him out, a wide, fluffy bath sheet in her hands. She wraps it around him without touching him, but she’s gentle about it.

“You don’t have to touch people to show that you love them,” she whispers in his ear.

Peter pulls back and tightens his towel. “I know, Auntie Nat. But thanks for checking.”

They make their way back into the bedroom, where Peter insists on dressing himself. Nat lets him, but does pick out what he’ll wear, which is his softest pajama pants and Daddy’s t-shirt.

She gets him snuggled into the big bed and they wait for Tony and Wanda. Wanda had wanted some privacy for a moment, and Tony had wanted a drink.

While they wait, Natasha plays him a lilting melody on Tony’s piano, situated off to the side. Peter hadn’t known that she could play, but it doesn’t surprise him, not really. Nat is good at pretty much everything, and the rest she fakes.

Peter gets sleepy almost immediately, barely feeling it when Wanda slips under the covers. Her hair is damp and she’s wearing Peter’s fluffy robe. Her skin is cold, at least on her forehead, which she presses into Peter’s shoulder, appearing desperate to warm up.

Peter is vaguely aware that Tony comes in—he hears the clink of a glass being set down, presumably on the piano, if voices are anything to go by—and then he’s out like a light.

He floats for a while, sort of in-and-out given the early hour and the fact that he doesn’t usually nap. Peter can tell when it’s Tony playing and when it’s Nat again, for instance, but it’s not enough of a jarring change for him to fully wake up.

He ends up with Wanda’s hair in his mouth and his face in her neck, warm and damp and feminine, but it’s not enough. It’s not enough to keep away the bad things.

The worst thing about the bad things is that they weren’t _all_ bad.

No, instead, Peter’s mind tries to be kind, tries to make him dream of Skip’s voice telling him how much of a quick study he was, which he can admit felt good. Peter floats through memories of praise and slick encouragement, not the harsh way he’d been ordered to clean up after himself every time, to scrub away the evidence. He doesn’t think about how he’d had trouble sleeping afterward and how he’d been told that lavender would help his insomnia, over and over again.

He fucking hates lavender, nearly as much as peppermint. It itches and tickles his nose and burns his eyes and it doesn’t matter if it had been Peter’s mother’s favorite flower, because now it’s just soap, just Skip’s mother’s stupid, girly soap in the stupid, blue bathroom.

(Down the drain.)

No, instead he’s able to haphazardly push away those thoughts and all the discordant notes they bring up, clinging to—who is it playing, now? Oh, it’s Nat—Nat’s song. He grabs onto it like it’s a rope thrown quick to quicksand, and tries to pull himself back towards the surface.

But, on the way, Peter encounters a sort of red warmth, artificial but welcome. His body heats and he’s reminded again of what it was like to be a child with no anxiety. (No shame.)

Peter snuggles into the warmth and comfort of that feeling, lets it hitch his hips against whatever’s around, lets it feel. Lets it feel _good._

He wakes on a broken-off gasp.

***

“Hey, baby. I know it’s early, shhhh,” Tony’s voice scratches out, fingers doing the same through Peter’s wavy hair. Peter, for his part, pushes into the contact like a housecat. Off to the side, Natasha chuckles, which gives Peter a fright.

He’d forgotten she was there. (She was good at making that happen.)

With the awareness of Nat, though, comes the awareness of Wanda, too. She’s dead to the world beside him in bed, lip stain a little smeared and, oh. Dress rucked up to the waist.

Tony follows his gaze. “Peter, let’s wake her up, okay?”

Nat sits gingerly at the head of the bed, by Wanda’s legs. She starts tickling the other woman’s feet, then tapping, and finally skittering her fingers up a bare calf. 

“Yikes!!!! I will murder your entire- Oh,” Wanda wakes, definitely back to her adult self. She pulls down her dress hastily before wiping at her mouth. “How long did we sleep for?” she asks, taking in Peter’s wrecked appearance.

Peter draws her into his body heat because he just can’t help it. It’s been an emotional day and although the rest made him feel better, he’s still just a bit… raw. She melts into the hug and doesn’t even act surprised when Peter presses a sweet kiss to her mouth.

He’s very aware of their audience, but it doesn’t _seem_ odd, not to him, not in this hazy headspace he’s occupying. (Or that’s occupying him.)

Tony’s hand is heavy on his ankle, and besides, Peter feels his look like a physical touch, always has. “Do you wanna talk about this, honey?”

“Not really,” he manages to murmur back, letting Wanda take over and mash their mouths together, almost childishly. He thinks it would be hard to explain how he feels right now. It’s a lot of too-tight skin and oddly intense kinship. He doesn’t feel like a baby, like a child, but he doesn’t exactly feel like an adult, either.

It comes to Peter as he’s kissing her, hearing Tony’s sharp intake of breath, how _performative_ this is. He feels as though he’s under a spotlight, and it gives him a thrill that’s a bit foreign to him. This is Peter, ‘The Spider-Man’ as Ned would call it; he’s used to attention.

But this is different. This is attention he controls.

Wanda is light as a kitten, easy for him to scoop up and settle over him. She’d stripped off Peter’s robe some time during the night and the silky nightgown underneath, the one that had gone astray, earlier feels amazing under his hands, though it’s curiously mobile—too big for her in every dimension—and it slips and slides.

He’s as confused by that as he is by the strands of pearls that weigh heavy on his own throat, as he licks into her mouth.

Then, as if she’s heard him, Wanda pulls back to say mischievously, “Do you like my dress-up, Pietro? Did you recognize me?”

“Always,” he says sleepily, wanting her to know that he sees her, that he understands her, that he accepts her just as much as she accepts him. They, the two youngest and most powerful Avengers for so many years, have a special bond. It’s Tony he’s in love with, Tony that he’s chosen to spend his life with, but Peter wants Wanda to know he’ll always be there for her.

She smiles gently back at him and shimmies a little, showing off her outfit a bit more. He cracks a conspiratorial grin.

Peter sits up, angling her up with him, grasping a random, twisting handful of necklace and night dress. He looks over her shoulder, pressing a little not-kiss that is just a warm mouth to it. He looks at Nat. “These are _your_ clothes?”

“Well, they’re certainly not _mine,_ ” Tony says slowly, as if coming back to himself. It’s the slowest Peter’s ever heard him quip.

That’s not what’s doing it for him, though, if Peter’s honest; it’s not what’s making him half-hard. It’s more the fact that he hasn’t felt this way since he was a teenager, so unaware of all the little pitfalls of relationships, so unconcerned. “Whatever you put in that bubble bath—science or magic, or both, I don’t care—is really… wow,” he says to Wanda.

“Just something I used to give my brother, to calm him,” she explains softly, eyes suspiciously bright.

Peter slides his hand into her silky hair, so long and different from what he’s used to. “Bet you didn’t do this with your brother, hmmmm?” he says against her mouth.

“You’d be surprised,” she replies breathlessly when he pulls back again.

Peter feels that sick jolt, low in his belly, and finally _gets it._ (This is about rewriting history for more than just him, maybe for all of them.)

He’s lifting the hem of her—Nat’s, actually—nightgown before he really even thinks about it, full of basic, adolescent fervor. Peter remembers himself, though, and asks, “This okay?”

Tony makes a low, almost wounded sound behind Wanda and then Nat is dragging him across the bed. “If you’re gonna complain that you can’t see, then _move_.”

Nat ends up perched on the piano bench while Tony comes fully around to kneel near the foot of the bed and watch Peter and Wanda, resting on the corner where the sheet is rucked up anyway.

But Wanda wants the attention for herself, it seems. She takes Peter’s hand and places it where it’s cold against her warm body, against delicate ribs. Just the top of his hand grazes the bottom of her breast, and again he feels so, so impossibly adolescent.

“Yes, this is okay.”


End file.
